The External Affair Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is also holding the Finance Ministry Portfolio in the absence of Prime Minister Manmohan, said that jobs must be protected even if it means a cut in compensation. He was speaking at the 42nd session of Indian Labour Conference in New Delhi on Friday.
Addressing to India Inc. in the seminar, the Minister said, “Jobs must be protected even if it means some reduction in compensation at various levels.” His appeal to Indian industries came in the backdrop of recent industries’ signals to cut substantially in number of jobs to confront the ongoing and deepening recession and global economic turmoil.
According a recent survey conducted by the Ministry of Labour, an estimated five lakh people have lost their jobs between October and December 2008, although Oscar Fernandes, the Labour Minister, later informed the parliament that the survey is only a sample by the labour bureau and doesn’t account the total job loss in the country.
Mr. Mukherjee advised that industries must explore other means of cost cutting including the sending off flashy corporate lifestyles and huge pay packages of the top officials, unnecessary traveling etc.
Stressing to protect jobs at any cost, Mukherjee said that the numbers of unemployed, working poor and vulnerable employed can be highly distressing; and hence country’s social welfare net needs to be strengthen as it would provide base for a socially harmonious shift in the pattern of employment.
Mukherjee quoted the recent International Labour Organisation (ILO) report that projected the rate of unemployment to 6.1% globally with 18 million new jobless this year. He said that the government was conscious of the intensity of worsening economic crisis and had been taking steps to moderate its impact. “We must display the spirit of solidarity by sharing equally the pain of this crisis,” he added.
Describing about the government’s measures to cope better with this global financial turmoil, Pranab said that the government was making all-out efforts to ensure flow of credit to boost trade, investment, consumption, and to stimulate additional demand through public and private expenditure.
Further to protect India from the extreme effect of this global economic downturn, the minister said the country needed to protect itself ‘unitedly and sagely’ against the fallout of a period of unprecedented economic crisis in the world. For this, we needed to deepen the spirit of tripartite cooperation - employer, employee and government- in labour matters.
India has the capability and resources to turn this crisis into an opportunity to restructure the economy and to raise our stature in the world community, he added.
He, however, expressed concern over protectionism policy of US, saying that India would oppose any move towards it. “We are already witnessing worrying signs of protectionism in the world’s biggest economy. We will need to argue against this trend in the international fora,” he said.
It is to mention here that United States of America (USA) had worked out a multi-billion corporate bailout package to heal the industries, but at the same time framed a ban proposal on those firms, which would hire foreign workers (on H-1B visa) instead of Americans.
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